Thursday, February 06, 2025

02/06 Links Pt1: How Trump Can Get Arab States to Solve the Refugee Problem Without Relocating Gazans; Trump Slaps Sanctions on International Criminal Court

From Ian:

Seth Mandel: How Trump Can Get Arab States to Solve the Refugee Problem Without Relocating Gazans
That is, the Arab states made a conscious, concerted decision to make Palestinians a permanent underclass so they could be used as a cudgel against Israel. Palestinians’ statelessness is the official policy of the Arab states, with the exception of Jordan, which granted Palestinian refugees citizenship while simultaneously insisting they keep their “refugee” status as far as the UN is concerned, thus obligating UN agencies to subsidize their absorption while artificially inflating the number of claimed Palestinian “refugees” in the region. (In the real world, you can be a refugee or you can be a resettled citizen.)

Lebanon has always made its position clear. In 2006, President Emile Lahoud explained: “We have today around half a million Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, their birth rate is three times higher than the Lebanese. That is a time bomb. It is the basic problem of our country, it led to the outbreak of civil war in 1975 and still remains unsolved today. Everybody today is talking about UN resolution 1559, but nobody mentions resolution 194, which recognizes the Palestinians’ right of return (to Israel). Lebanon is small and can’t integrate the Palestinians.”

That is, the Lebanese position has always been that Palestinians are a demographic threat and keep their host country constantly on the verge of civil war, so they should go to Israel.

In Lebanon, Palestinians still mostly live in camps. In addition, “Laws, decrees, and regulations of professional associations specify that members must hold Lebanese nationality for at least ten years or that there must be reciprocity of treatment for Lebanese professionals in the country of citizenship of the foreign professional applying to practice in Lebanon,” which means Palestinians cannot legally work in major industries.

In Syria, Palestinians are lucky if their camps even still stand. “The Yarmouk refugee camp outside Damascus was considered the capital of the Palestinian diaspora before the war in Syria reduced it to row after row of blasted out buildings,” reported the Associated Press in December. Bashar al-Assad’s forces flattened Yarmouk and left it abandoned, then made it nearly impossible to legally rebuild.

What’s the purpose of all this? Very simply, the point is to prevent full acceptance of Israel’s existence and prepare the ground for a perpetual cycle of wars of annihilation against the Jewish state. The Palestinians suffer most from the Arab world’s policy, not because they are the target but because they are the weapon.

Egypt receives over a billion dollars a year in U.S. aid. In Syria, Assad has fallen, potentially opening up an opportunity to renegotiate its official policy of using Palestinians as cannon fodder against Israel. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has been greatly weakened and the U.S. is currently overseeing a ceasefire agreement there.

If Trump wants to save Israeli and Palestinian lives and keep the peace in the Middle East, he should use U.S. leverage to end the permanent refugee status of Palestinians.
Jonathan Tobin: Trump plan puts an end to the Palestinian state fantasy
Chances for a state
The notion of a two-state solution died a long time ago.
It could have easily been put into effect if only veteran terrorist and P.A. leader Yasser Arafat—newly off his title as chief of the Palestinian Liberation Organization with blood on his hands—had said “yes” to the offers of independence and statehood offered him by former President Bill Clinton and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. But after Arafat answered that peace offer with the terrorist war of attrition known as the Second Intifada, most Israelis understood that the land for peace schemes they had been sold was nothing more than land for terror. The conversion of Gaza into a terror state and missile launching pad against Israeli civilians after 2005 only confirmed that unhappy truth.

Still, the Palestinians had more opportunities and much international support. Statehood could have happened when President George W. Bush and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert made an even sweeter offer to Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas. And the opportunity for Palestinian statehood was always a theoretical possibility during the eight years of the presidency of Barack Obama, who did everything he could to tilt the diplomatic playing field in their direction.

But after Oct. 7 and the war that followed it, it’s safe to say that Palestinian statehood stopped being anything but a tired and meaningless policy concept that had outlived its sell-by date.

What lies ahead for the Palestinians or Gaza? It’s hard to say.

Trump pushed for a ceasefire/hostage release deal that could leave Hamas in power in Gaza. But his statements about the necessity for the removal of much, if not all, of the Palestinian population for the area to be rebuilt shows he doesn’t want that to happen. And as much as he would like for there to be no wars taking place on his watch, it seems unlikely that he would oppose further Israeli efforts to finish off Hamas—as Biden and Harris did—once it’s clear that the ceasefire will not force its disarming and eviction from power. The era of “daylight” between the United States and Israel is also over.

It’s entirely possible that the Palestinians in Gaza will insist on staying in the same state of limbo that they have chosen for themselves since 1948. They may continue waiting for Israel’s destruction so the descendants of the original refugees can go “home” to a country that never actually existed as a separate Palestinian Arab nation and never will. And it’s equally possible that with or without Hamas leadership, the political culture of the Palestinians is so twisted and intransigent that few will dare to take Trump up on his offer of the resettlement they’ve been denied for all these years for fear of being killed by Hamas operatives or their neighbors.

But there should be no doubt that despite the calumnies heaped upon Trump for having the temerity to discard foreign-policy conventional wisdom, this is the best offer the Palestinians will ever likely get.

There is no rational alternative
They may get the satisfaction of seeing Trump’s idea die for lack of support from anyone but Israel. But the alternative to the problem is for the Palestinian people to remain living in squalor, where they are only considered useful by their leaders, activists, university students and others who exploit the situation, as cannon fodder to wage war against the Jewish state.

What Trump has done is to consign the idea of Palestinian statehood to the ash heap of history, where it belongs. Along with his withdrawal from UNRWA—the U.N. refugee agency that has refused to resettle the Palestinians since 1948 and that helped perpetuate the war on Israel—and his recent defunding of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), whose “humanitarian” projects similarly helped prop up Palestinian intransigence, Trump has decisively shifted U.S. policy away from fantasy to realism.

American support was always essential for Palestinian statehood. That is finished. His critics may decry this all they want, but the bitter truth they fail to acknowledge is that their alternatives to Trump’s Gaza idea are even more unrealistic and dangerous than his.
Trump's Plan to Free Palestinians from Gaza
President Trump shocked the world with his proposal to resettle Gazans in nearby countries. The real disturbance is to think seriously about what it would mean to put Palestinian lives first rather than sacrificing them to the lost cause of Palestine as their leaders always do. Each major Palestinian leader has preferred his own generation to suffer rather than consent to live alongside a Jewish state on any part of the Jewish homeland.

This is the worst kind of nationalism, an eliminationist one that brings its people only misery. But Arab states have long indulged it. It relieved them of the burdens first of resettling Palestinians and then of starting and losing wars to annihilate Israel.

The world plays along. UNRWA was founded in 1949 to resettle the displaced from the defeated Arab invasion of Israel. The Arab and Soviet blocs made UNRWA into a permanent international commitment to the lost cause. Palestinians are radicalized in UNRWA schools and kept on the international dole rather than encouraged to build institutions of their own. That's the purpose of the Gaza. Trump now proposes to do the job UNRWA never would.

The scandal isn't that displaced Palestinians now could be "transferred" voluntarily out of Gaza; it's that they have been forced to stay there. When Palestinians tried to flee the war, as is their human right, Egypt forcibly closed the border - with the support of the international community. Their incarceration by UNRWA and Egypt is the brutal status quo, strangely unchallenged until now.


Amb. Michael Oren: Trump Is Changing the Rules of the Mideast Game
President Trump's plan for Gaza suggests a fundamental shift in U.S. policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The previous administration lacked a serious plan for demilitarizing Gaza. With a single dramatic move, Trump is rewriting the playbook. He recognizes that Gaza will remain a breeding ground for violence and war unless it is demilitarized. He understands that this cannot be achieved as long as Hamas remains in control.

Perhaps most significantly, Trump is challenging what he sees as a long-standing Palestinian dependency on victimhood. Palestinians can stand amid Gaza's ruins and declare victory to the Muslim world while portraying their suffering to the West, but Trump isn't buying either narrative. Instead, he is offering them a chance to break free from this cycle.

Tragically, the Palestinians - and much of the Arab world - will likely reject Trump's proposal outright. But even if Trump's vision never materializes, he has fundamentally and irreversibly changed the conversation. By upending long-held assumptions and introducing radical new ideas, he has opened the door to creative diplomacy.
Jonathan Sacerdoti: The Audacity of Trump's Gaza Plan
The Trump press conference was a disruption of long-entrenched, failed orthodoxies and the unveiling of a vision that dares to reimagine the Middle East in starkly different terms. For decades, world leaders have clung to exhausted formulas - peace processes built on illusion, agreements predicated on fantasy, and a willful refusal to acknowledge the fundamental realities of Palestinian rejectionism and terror. That era is now over.

Trump unequivocally stated that the goal is not to reform Gaza, not to manage it, but to remove its population entirely. No more illusions of Palestinian self-rule, no more diplomatic contortions to accommodate an irredeemable status quo. Trump's plan is not another failed experiment in Palestinian self-rule - but a move to dismantle the population that carried out the most brutal attack on Jews since the Holocaust and to relocate them elsewhere.

This was an act of political theater designed to break the bubble of denial and intransigence. The old paradigm of a Palestinian state, a fixture of failed diplomatic orthodoxy, is now irrelevant. Yes to permanently ending Hamas and ensuring Gaza can never again pose a threat.

It is a vision of finality - an approach that seeks to bring the conflict to a decisive and irreversible conclusion. It acknowledges the truth that Gaza, under its current governance and population, is a failed experiment that cannot be salvaged.
WSJ Editorial: Critics Deride Trump's Idea, But What Are They Offering Palestinians?
President Trump's idea that the U.S. might relocate two million Palestinians from Gaza and then rebuild the strip isn't going to happen soon, if ever. But the idea does have the virtue of forcing the world to confront its hypocrisy over the fate of the Palestinian people.

Note that Mr. Trump expressed admirable sympathy for the Palestinians and their plight. Gaza "has been a symbol of death and destruction for so many decades and so bad for the people anywhere near it," he said Tuesday. Who could disagree with that? He went on to say, "we should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this."

Is his idea so much worse than the status quo that the rest of the world is offering? The famous "two-state solution," with a Palestinian state next to Israel, won't happen as long as Hamas still runs Gaza and could run the West Bank. The best the world can come up with is to let Gaza remain a hell-hole where Hamas will revive its reign of terror, and Palestinians who want something different will be tossed off buildings.
Take Trump's Plan to Relocate Gazans Seriously, Not Literally
A truly novel solution - the proposed relocation of Gazans to other parts of the Middle East, as now suggested by Donald Trump - was immediately dismissed as offensive and unworkable. But nothing even close to a forced "transfer" is on the table here.

As with so much in Trump-world, the trick is to take the president seriously, not literally. Focus on the essence of his messaging: that it's time for the Arab world to take responsibility for looking after people they profess to care about.

The point here isn't that Trump necessarily wants to force Gazans from Gaza. Instead, mechanisms must be devised to allow Gazans who want to leave to at least be given the option of doing so. No one should be forced to live under the rule of craven Islamist fundamentalists who starve their own citizens of basic resources and use them as human shields. We certainly would not expect this from people in the West - so why do we demand it of Gazans?
Einat Wilf: Trump Is Right - Gaza's Future Depends on Breaking the Cycle of Destruction
At the heart of President Trump's proposal lies an oft-overlooked fact: Gaza is not inherently doomed to fail. Its problems are not geographical, economic, or even logistical in nature - they are entirely political.

The Gazans, and their sympathizers, have couched Gaza in terms of a hapless victim of circumstance for decades. Reality starkly differs. Gaza is a prime piece of real estate - a coastal strip abutting the Mediterranean, with fertile sands from the Egyptian Delta, proximal to ancient trade routes. The only problem Gaza has is the politics of destruction.

Since Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, the leadership there used international aid to turn Gaza into a military fortress embedded with terror tunnels and missile launch sites against Israel. Billions of dollars cascaded into Gaza from the U.S., EU, and Qatar. Much of it was diverted to armaments and terror infrastructure.

If Gaza is to have a future, it has to start with a change of mind. The Palestinian notion of "return" - the idea that generations of Palestinians, including those born in Gaza, are refugees awaiting their rightful home in Israel - needs to be brought to a close. That ideological obsession underpinned the Oct. 7 attacks.
Most Palestinian Families Come from Immigrants from the Past Two Centuries
Prior to 1948, practically the only people who referred to themselves as Palestinians were the Jews.

Modern Palestinian identity was largely invented in 1964 when the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was created.

Throughout history, family and tribal ties in the Middle East have often been defined by economic and trade networks rather than geographical borders. The concept of borders, as we understand them in the West, was irrelevant.

Identity in the region has historically been fluid, shaped by social and economic relationships rather than by modern political boundaries. And they still are.

In the 19th century, much of what is now the West Bank and Gaza was sparsely populated and underdeveloped.

The Ottoman Empire sought to repopulate and develop the region by bringing in Muslim migrants from Albania, Bosnia and the Caucasus.

In the 1840s, Egyptian forces occupied the region, prompting many Egyptians to settle there.

Construction of the Haifa branch of the Ottoman railway linking southern Turkey to Mecca attracted laborers from Jordan and Syria, many of whom remained in the area.

During the British Mandate period, as Jewish immigration increased, Arab workers from across the Jordan River streamed westward, drawn by employment opportunities and improved health care provided by the Jews. They did not perceive themselves as Palestinians.

The historical connections between the people of Gaza, the West Bank and British Mandate Palestine are shaped by centuries of migration.

They are not one people, but a hodge-podge of peoples with no prior connection to pre-1948 Palestine, who settled there during the past two centuries.

In this context, Trump's plan to resettle the people of Gaza in other parts of the Muslim world fits in perfectly with the normal patterns of migration in the region.
Seth Mandel: Sell Hamas For Parts
Of course, simply governing the Gaza Strip is worth hundreds of millions of dollars. As NBC reported, “In addition to levying taxes on Gaza’s businesses and residents, Hamas imposes unofficial fees on smuggled goods and other activity, for a combined income of up to $450 million per year.” Getting Hamas off the border crossings will stop the siphoning-off of local wealth that ought to stay put instead of finding its way into the pockets of terrorists.

As the Atlantic Council points out, there are also gaps in the anti-Hamas alliance that can be closed. Not all allied countries have designated Hamas as a terrorist organization, and that’s especially true in the Gulf. At this point, no one should be doing business with the remnants of Hamas.

Since the Oct. 7 attacks, other avenues of drying up Hamas’s cash flow have emerged. Last year, about 100 Israelis sued UNRWA, the UN agency that works with Hamas in Gaza, over the money it provided to the enclave. Several current and former officials “are accused of knowing that Hamas siphoned off more than $1 billion from the agency to pay for, among other things, tunneling equipment and weapons that aided its attack on Israel on Oct. 7,” according to the New York Times.

It shouldn’t be difficult to starve Hamas of cash now. And in the process, we can learn a lot about how to more effectively get money to its proper destination in the Gaza Strip.
Khaled Abu Toameh: How Hamas Plans To Foil Trump's Gaza Plan
Hamas is basically saying that if the Trump administration dares to implement the relocation and reconstruction plan, the terrorist organization will unleash a wave of terrorism against Americans and Palestinians.

Hamas does not want any US intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The terrorist group, together with Iran's terror proxies, fear that this would disrupt their Jihad (holy war) against Israel.

For the Trump plan to succeed, the US must insist on the removal of Hamas from power and the disarming of all the terror groups in the Gaza Strip.

It will take several years to rebuild the Gaza Strip and make it habitable once again. The Trump administration will be gone by then. The biggest fear is that a future US administration will fail to block the return of terrorists to the rebuilt Gaza Strip.

If that happens, it will be a matter of time before the Gaza Strip once again becomes a large base for jihadists not only from Hamas, but other Islamist terror groups for whom Israel and the US are the Number 1 target.
Trump Slaps Sanctions on Anti-Israel International Criminal Court
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday sanctioning the International Criminal Court (ICC) over its efforts to prosecute America and its allies, primarily Israel. The order "places financial and visa sanctions" on all ICC personnel, as well as their families, according to information provided by the White House.

Trump’s order closely mirrors congressional legislation that overwhelmingly passed the GOP-controlled House in January. The bill stalled in the Senate, however, when all but one Democratic member, Pennsylvania’s John Fetterman, voted against it.

Like Congress’s bill, Trump’s order authorizes far-reaching sanctions on the ICC and those who assist it in investigating U.S. citizens and allies, according to a White House fact sheet reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The court has faced widespread GOP criticism for issuing an arrest warrant on Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is in Washington, D.C., through Sunday for meetings with the White House and Congress.

"By issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials and Hamas officials at the same time, the ICC created a shameful moral equivalency," the White House wrote in its fact sheet on the executive order. "The ICC consistently constrains liberal, democratic nations like Israel in exercising their rights to self-defense." Trump, the fact sheet adds, "will not support an organization that unfairly targets U.S. citizens and our allies."

Neither Israel nor the United States recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction. Trump nonetheless applied both financial sanctions and visa restrictions on its members, measures that will effectively bar ICC officials, as well as their family members, from entering the United States and cut off their access to some financial networks.

The sanctions, the White House said, are in direct response to the "ICC’s biased attacks on the U.S. and Israel." Trump’s decision to sign the order while Netanyahu is in town reflects the White House’s drive to strengthen the U.S.-Israel alliance after four years of tension under Joe Biden.

"The ICC’s disproportionate focus on Israel, without investigating the actions of groups that openly call for Israel’s destruction, reveals a clear double standard," the fact sheet adds. It also points out that while the ICC pursues Israel, it has done little to combat the Iranian regime’s mass human rights abuses.
Eugene Kontorovich: Senate Democrats sank ICC sanctions — making Trump the court’s next target
Last week, Senate Democrats tanked a vote on a bill that would have slapped sanctions on the International Criminal Court for its outrageous arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant.

The ICC’s action showed its willingness to act against non-members like Israel and the United States, putting American service members and other potential US targets in danger.

But the Democrats’ action was equally craven: Not only did it keep alive the grotesque prosecution of Israel’s leaders for defending their nation against terrorist attackers, it set a ticking time bomb for President Trump.

The “Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act” would have imposed direct sanctions on ICC officials who “engaged in any effort to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute” an individual or entity in the United States, or any citizen or lawful resident of a US ally that has not agreed to the court’s jurisdiction.

In other words, the bill would have protected Americans and allies like Israel from being targeted by the rogue court.

The bill passed with significant bipartisan support in the House, and Senate Democrats previously said they favored it.

But at the last minute Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) manufactured a quibble to justify voting against it, claiming the bill’s “lack of precision” could have put in its crosshairs American tech companies that assist the ICC in its investigations.

Schumer’s argument was disingenuous: The first Trump administration imposed sanctions almost identical to those in the bill by executive order, without any US firms being penalized.

But it was enough to sink the ICC Act — and preserve the court’s hounding of Israel in the wake of Oct. 7.


Israeli defence minister tells IDF to prepare plan for ‘voluntary departure’ of Gazans
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz has told the IDF to prepare a plan to allow the “voluntary departure” of residents from Gaza after saying he welcomes President Trump’s “bold plan” for the region.

“I have instructed the (army) to prepare a plan that would allow any Gaza resident who wishes to leave to do so, to any country willing to accept them,” Katz reportedly said on Thursday.

“The plan will include exit options through land crossings, as well as special arrangements for departure by sea and air.”

Discussing which countries might be among those to take Palestinians in, he said:”Countries like Spain, Ireland, Norway, and others, which have levelled accusations and false claims against Israel over its actions in Gaza, are legally obligated to allow any Gaza resident to enter their territories.”

He added:”Their hypocrisy will be exposed if they refuse to do so.

“There are countries like Canada, which has a structured immigration programme, that have previously expressed a willingness to accept Gaza residents.” Israel Katz

In an interview with Fox News, Benjamin Netanyahu did not discuss the US president’s initial pledge to “take over ” Gaza, but backed the idea of allowing people to leave if they wanted to.

“I mean, what’s wrong with that?” he said. “They can leave, they can then come back, they can relocate and come back. But you have to rebuild Gaza.”

Katz’s comments were unsurprisingly welcomed by far-right ministers in the Israeli government.

“I congratulate the defense minister on his decision to instruct the IDF to prepare to fulfill our role in the migration plan to allow the departure of Gazans from Gaza to receiving countries,” finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said.

He added: “As we have been saying for many years, and even more so since the beginning of the war, there is no other realistic solution that will ensure peace and security for Israel and personal wellbeing for the residents of Gaza.”


Ben Shapiro: Trump Unleashes MIND-BLOWING Gaza Plan!
President Trump unleashes a groundbreaking plan for the future of the Gaza Strip and the Middle East; the White House plans an executive order to end men in women’s sports; and AOC calls Elon Musk stupid.




‘They certainly break the paradigm’: Douglas Murray reacts to Donald Trump’s bold Gaza plans
Author Douglas Murray has commented on US President Donald Trump’s plans to rebuild Gaza and have American ownership of the enclave.

“As for the Gaza announcements this week, they certainly break the paradigm, don’t they?” Mr Murray told Sky News host Rita Panahi.

“Trump has said what is completely true which is Gaza isn’t especially liveable these days.”


Former IDF spokesperson responds to Trump’s Gaza proposals
Former IDF spokesperson Jonathan Conricus has weighed in on US President Donald Trump’s comments about Gaza and the Middle East.

President Trump joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a media conference on Tuesday local time, where he announced the US would take over, clear out and rebuild Gaza into a flourishing “economic development”.

“I think that there’s a lot of seriousness and I think it’s you know not something that was said off the cuff,” Mr Conricus told Sky News Australia.

“This appears to have real presidential prestige behind it. I think this is the first really big presidential move of President Trump.”


Call me Back Podcast - with Dan Senor: TRUMP & THE FUTURE OF GAZA - with Rich Goldberg
Yesterday, in a dramatic and unexpected press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump called for a U.S. takeover of Gaza, and to relocate its two million Palestinian residents to alternative countries. President Trump also issued a series of executive orders impacting Israel and the Middle East, including one imposing maximum pressure on Iran. To discuss these fast-moving developments, Rich Goldberg returns to the podcast.

Rich is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). From 2019-2020, he served as Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction for the Trump White House National Security Council (NSC). He previously served as a national security staffer in the U.S. Senate and U.S. House and is an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve with military experience on the Joint Staff and in Afghanistan.

Timestamps:
0:00 – Introduction
3:02 – Contours of Trump’s proposal
9:58 – The President’s vision for Gaza
12:17 – Will the U.S. be an occupational authority in Gaza?
14:43 – Gaza as an international zone of commerce?
21:00 – Is this an attempt to stop repeating past mistakes? Breaking the box?
28:37 – What this means for Israel, the coalition, and hostage families
36:41 – Saudi normalization
39:32 – This negotiation process as a zero-sum game?
42:30 – Executive order on Iran


George Mason University's Eugene Kontorovich on President Trump's Gaza Proposal

Donald Trump has ‘shaken up the system’ with his Gaza plan
Professor of Politics at Bar-Ilan University Gerald Steinberg says Donald Trump has “shaken up the system” with his Gaza plan.

Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, announced the US could potentially take over the Gaza Strip.

Mr Trump plans to rebuild the Gaza Strip and redevelop the whole area under US control.




Trump's Gaza Plan: What Do Americans Think and Does Biased Messaging Influence Opinion?
President Trump has recently raised the possibility of "relocating" Palestinians from Gaza to neighboring countries while Gaza is "cleaned up."

We tested two matched random groups of 255 Americans for their opinions on the plan. We also provided each group with an introduction that either was biased for the plan or against it.

Prior to being presented with the plan, both groups were queried on their sympathy toward Israel, Hamas, and the Palestinians.

Results showed strong sympathy for Israel versus Hamas but more nuanced sympathy when asked about "Palestinians, but not Hamas" and sympathy for "both sides" equally.

The group that received the biased pro-plan message showed a considerable uptick in agreement for the plan than did the group that received an anti-plan message.

Results indicate that Trump's plan potentially has substantial support in the U.S. and that messaging promoting it can bolster that support.
Media ‘meltdown’ over Trump’s Gaza plan has been ‘fun to watch’
Sky News host Sharri Markson says the media, politicians and commentators are “in meltdown” over Donald Trump's idea to takeover Gaza.

In a press conference Wednesday (local time) alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump made the extraordinary announcement the United States would clear out and rebuild Gaza into a flourishing "economic development".

Mr Markson says the left’s reaction to the US President’s vision of the Gaza Strip has been “fun to watch”.

“Trump has a vision that just could work with the involvement of the Arab nations – but perhaps the international community, like the United Nations, doesn't want to lift Palestinians out of the endless cycle of poverty, victimhood and misery.”


Questions if Hamas ‘wants to keep Palestinians suffering’
Sky News host Sharri Markson discusses how Hamas may want to “keep Palestinians suffering”.

“Hamas and the international community perhaps does not want Gaza to be modernised,” Ms Markson said.

“Perhaps wants to keep Palestinians suffering?”


MEMRI: Palestinian Columnist On Saudi Website Welcomes Trump Proposal To Evacuate Gaza Strip; Says Palestinians Want To Live And Build A Better Future For Their Children
Upon assuming the U.S. presidency in January 2025, Donald Trump unveiled his vision for the Gaza Strip, according to which all its residents will leave and the U.S. will assume control over the enclave and responsibility for its reconstruction. Palestinians and the entire Arab world hastened to reject the plan and to vehemently criticize it. And yet, the Saudi website Elaph chose to present a different response, from a Palestinian columnist who supports the Trump plan and welcomes it. Majdi Abd Al-Wahhab, a columnist who contributes to the website, claimed that the plan will deliver the Palestinian from the refugee status that has been forced upon them by Palestinian and Arab elements that he says trade in the Palestinian issue and sentence the Palestinian population to a life of poverty and disease in the refugee camps, while they enjoy the good life in Europe.

In an article titled, "Thank you Trump, I'm a Palestinian and I support You," which Abd Al-Wahhab stated is based on an article that he published in 2018, in which he welcomed the decision by President Trump, during his first term, to cease funding to UNRWA, he urged Palestinians to internalize the lessons of the past and stop allowing others to use them to serve their own objectives, and to take action to create a better future for themselves and their children. He wrote that many people in the Gaza Strip would like to leave it after it was demolished during the recent war, which erupted in response to the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

The following is a translation of his article:
"Today I once again support him [President Trump] and his ideas for a solution to the problem of the Gaza Strip, following the war that broke out after the Hamas attack on the communities adjacent to Gaza on October 7, and after the devastation caused to the Gaza Strip…"

"We Palestinians have known killing and massacres, displacement and exile, wars and fleeing. We have known every form of suffering for over a hundred years. The disasters we have suffered were caused by our own brothers, our own people, who thought that riding the waves of nationality, nationalism, organizations and religion was the way to attain the longed-for homeland. However, those who preceded us in attaining this homeland [i.e., the Jews] were much more honest than we were in their affiliation with it, for they learned from history not to lie to themselves. They learned the lesson and established their state after thousands of years of exile.

"I am the displaced Palestinian refugee in the refugee camps of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and even Israel, wondering: what have I gained with my refugee certificate, other than [the opportunity for] my children, and my family to wait for a little oil and flour? They want me to cling to this status [of a refugee]. More precisely... the leaders of organizations like Fatah, the Popular [and Democratic Fronts for the Liberation of Palestine], Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad are the ones who want us to remain trapped in this identity. Many countries help them with this. Those who benefit from and trade in the Palestinian cause will not stop as long as we agree to be their tools and as long as we do not shed the garments they have dressed us in, especially the garments of the refugee.

"They want us to be refugees and beggars, while they, the masters, continue to enjoy the pleasures of life in Vienna and their children live in Dubai, Amman, and Paris, whereas our children live in the refugee camps.
MEMRI: Reactions In Qatar To Trump's Vision For Gaza: It Is A 'Cursed' Plan And 'A Heinous Crime'
U.S. President Donald Trump's vision for the Gaza Strip, namely that the entire population of the Strip will leave and the U.S. will take over the area and oversee its reconstruction, a vision he presented in a joint February 5, 2025 press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, met with pointed criticism in Qatar. Qatari press editorials stressed that "Qatar supports the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in its land," and called Trump's plan of expelling the Palestinians "a heinous crime" that threatens the stability of the region and as "the worst thing the Palestinians and the world could have expected." A columnist in a Qatari daily predicted that Trump would meet a bitter fate because of this plan, and proposed to return the Palestinians into the state of Israel instead.

This criticism also found expression on X. Qatari journalists, presenters on the emirate's Al-Jazeera Network and clerics affiliated with Qatar attacked the proposal and Trump himself. One journalist wrote that Trump suffers from schizophrenia, and others described his plan as "cursed" and as a "pipe dream," and called to oppose it. Clerics close to Qatar even wrote that cooperating with the plan is an act of betrayal against Allah and the Prophet Muhammad, and stated that Palestine will not be free until "America and its agents pay the price for their barbarism" there.

This report presents some of the Qatari responses to Trump's proposal for the Gaza Strip.

Qatari Government Daily Al-Sharq: Trump's Proposal Is A Heinous Crime That Threatens The Region's Stability

The February 6 editorial of the daily Al-Sharq stated: "Qatar, along with the [other] countries of the region, underlines its full support for the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in its land and for its insistence on its legitimate rights, in accordance with international law.

"Doha reiterates its rejection of [anything that] violates the inalienable rights of the Palestinians, whether through settlement activity, expulsion, annexation of land or exile of landowners, in any circumstances and under any pretext.

"Exiling the Palestinians from their lands is a heinous crime against them… [which] threatens stability, perpetuates the conflict in the region and thwarts opportunities for peace and coexistence between the peoples of the region."[1]

Editorial In Al-Quds Al-Arabi: Trump Has Become "The Worst Thing" For The Palestinians And The World

The February 6 editorial of the London-based Qatari daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi stated that Trump "has become the worst thing the Palestinians and the world could have expected," and added: "His statements are a warning bell, not only for the Palestinians but for the Arabs and the world at large. They are also an opportunity to repeat warnings we have voiced many times in the past, regarding the inconsistency of Trump's proposals: [he vowed] to 'end wars,' yet his foreign policy lays solid foundations for a union between the far-right movements in the West and the Israeli extremism…

"This is naturally not the time to rebuke the Arabs and Muslims who voted for Trump, or the analysts who contributed to the unfortunate conclusion that there is no political difference between the Republicans and Democrats in America…"[2]


Two IDF soldiers killed by collapsed crane in Gaza Strip
IDF Sgt.-Maj. (res.) Nadav Cohen, 21, from Beit Hanan, and St.-Sgt. Nachman Refael Ben Ami, 20, from Eilat were killed in the northern Gaza Strip, the IDF announced on Thursday.

The military added that another soldier was seriously wounded in the incident, and several others were wounded to various degrees.

Due to bad weather, a crane fell in the area where the soldiers were operating near the Israeli border, according to media reports.

The military opened an investigation into the incident.

Soldiers killed since beginning of war
According to the IDF’s tally, the deaths of Cohen and Ben Ami raise the total of soldiers killed on or since October 7 of last year to 844. Of this number, 405 were killed since the start of the military’s ground operations in Gaza on October 27.

In the West Bank, the IDF said that the 828th Brigade apprehended more than 25 suspects during a counterterrorism operation in the Tammun area.

The soldiers also located facilities in the area used to produce explosives intended for terror purposes.

Overnight on Wednesday, security forces located explosives in a facility in the Nablus area and apprehended two suspects, along with more weapons and cash.


Unpacked: What Happens Inside Gaza’s Secret Tunnels? | Unpacked
Beneath the streets of Gaza lies a vast tunnel network. Once a lifeline for families, Hamas’ tunnels now enable terror while shielding fighters underground, leaving civilians exposed above.

Redefining modern warfare, Gaza’s underground network holds the key to understanding Israel and Hamas’ unprecedented standoff.

Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:51 Original intentions of the tunnels
03:31 Becoming a source of terror
05:26 Israel's failed attempts to neutralize the tunnels
07:04 Hamas investments in and dangers of the tunnels
10:55 Israel & Egypt's further attempts to neutralize the tunnels
12:56 Where does the money come from?
14:26 The tunnels as a military base & concealment
15:49 Palestinians used as human shields
17:44 Gaza War


Israel foiled plot to blow up bus remotely in Jerusalem
Israeli security forces prevented a bus bombing in Jerusalem by arresting five Palestinian terrorists who planned to execute the attack remotely, the Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) said in a statement on Thursday.

The five alleged co-conspirators have been indicted for belonging to and engaging in an illegal association; conspiring to commit murder; gun offenses; and the attempted manufacture of a weapon, according to the statement from the Shin Bet.

The defendants, some of whom are allegedly affiliated with Hamas and others with Fatah, acted as a cell to remotely detonate an explosive device, which they planned to smuggle into Jerusalem from Samaria, the Shin Bet statement also said.

The gun offenses include shooting attacks that some of the defendants were involved in against IDF troops, according to Shin Bet. None of those attacks resulted in injury, the text also said.

One of the alleged cell members, Ahmed Jaser Ali, manufactured an explosive device for the planned bus bombing, the Shin Bet added. The cell members experimented with this device and others to determine how much explosives to pack into it.

The defendants are from the Ramallah area. In addition to Jaser Ali, they are Mander Sheikh Qassem, Bashir Awad, Omar Tsobakh and Ali Shweiki.

In recent weeks, Israel has stepped up its operations against terrorists in Judea and Samaria. Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has killed 917 Palestinians in that area, most of them armed terrorists, and detained about 6,000 others, according to the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. In that period, terrorists have killed 63 Israelis in Judea and Samaria, most of whom were civilians.


90 major attacks thwarted as Iran fuels unrest in Judea and Samaria
Over the past month, Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) agents, working alongside the Israel Defense Forces, have thwarted 90 major terrorist attacks, including 75 in Samaria, as security sources warn that Iran is fueling violence in Judea and Samaria.

A security official identified Tehran as a central force escalating tensions by supplying weapons and financial aid to terrorist networks, significantly increasing the security threat, Channel 12 News reported on Wednesday.

The IDF and Shin Bet have expanded “Operation Iron Wall,” now in its 16th day, targeting the “Pentagon of Villages”—the area east of Jenin that includes Tubas, Tammun, Tayasir, Aqabah and Far’a. So far, around 50 terrorists have been killed, and more than 100 wanted suspects arrested.

As part of the latest wave of arrests in Jenin and Tulkarem, security forces targeted financial operatives, including money changers funding terrorist infrastructure such as bomb-making, recruitment and arms procurement.

The ongoing security threat was underscored on Tuesday when a shooting attack on Israeli forces in northern Samaria killed two soldiers and wounded eight others.

Despite the attack, “Iron Wall” continues at full force, with IDF Central Command emphasizing that “this attack only reinforces the operation’s necessity.”

The military has signaled that the operation will expand in the coming days, stating: “This is a very serious incident, and the army must draw many lessons—which it will do. Routine life in the valley continues as usual. There is much the military must learn.”


IAF strikes military sites in Lebanon citing presence of Hezbollah weaponry
The IAF struck two military sites in Lebanon on Thursday, the military confirmed, citing the presence of Hezbollah weaponry.

According to the IDF, the presence of these weapons, as well as attempts to smuggle weaponry into Lebanese territory through the Syrian border, constituted a violation of the current ceasefire.

Additionally, the terror organization has reportedly attempted to build infrastructure in the areas under attack.

Two military sites found to have contained Hezbollah weapons near the Litani River were attacked, the IDF stated. Israeli-Hezbollah ceasefire

The current ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah will remain in place until February 18 unless another extension is agreed upon.

During the previous round of ceasefire negotiations, which occurred in January, sources close to the now-US President Donald Trump reportedly warned Israeli officials, “We don’t want the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon to collapse.”


Cotton reintroduces bill to ban federal gov from using term ‘West Bank’
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) reintroduced legislation on Wednesday that would bar the federal government from using the term “West Bank” to describe Judea and Samaria.

The bill requires the use of “historically accurate terminology” and “pushes back on attempts to undermine Israel’s sovereign territory.”

“The Jewish people’s legal and historic rights to Judea and Samaria goes back thousands of years,” Cotton stated. “The United States should stop using the politically-charged term ‘West Bank’ to refer to the biblical heartland of Israel.”

Formally titled the Retiring the Egregious Confusion Over the Genuine Name of Israel’s Zone of Influence by Necessitating Government-use of Judea and Samaria Act (the “RECOGNIZING Judea and Samaria Act”), the bill bans funding for use of the phrase “West Bank” in any “policy, guidance, regulation, notice, executive order, materials, briefing, press release, communications or other work product” unless waived by the secretary of state.

The legislation also substitutes “Judea and Samaria” in place of “West Bank” in existing law.

The bill is the senate companion to legislation Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) reintroduced in the House on Friday.

“The Israeli people have an undeniable and indisputable historical and legal claim over Judea and Samaria,” Tenney said. “I remain committed to defending the integrity of the Jewish state and fully supporting Israel’s sovereignty over Judea and Samaria.”

Critics of the term “West Bank” argue that the phrase erases the ancient Jewish connection to the land and delegitimizes the presence of Israelis in Judea and Samaria.


Palestinian Authority Antisemitism - Itamar Marcus, Founder & Director, PMW Superb presentation and analysis on the depth and breadth of Jew hatred in the Arab Palestinian society and Palestinian Authority.

Itamar Marcus is the founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)



‘Outrageous behaviour’: Jewish speaker abused during Oxford debate
British broadcaster and writer Jonathan Sacerdoti discusses his “unpleasant and frosty” reception at Oxford University where he appeared as a debate speaker.

“I was surprised by the outrageous behaviour, not just of the audience there who seemed to have been handpicked to cause trouble and stop us from speaking,” Mr Sacerdoti told Sky News host Rita Panahi.

“But also, by the organiser who had done everything they could to make sure our reception was unpleasant and frosty.”


America’s Most Pro-Israel Politician is a Democrat | Ritchie Torres | Israel Gaza | The Sanity Club
Politico called Ritchie Torres Israel’s loudest supporter in the House of Representatives. He’s not Jewish. He didn’t grow up around Jews. He only visited Israel for the first time ten years ago. And while some progressives are shunning Israel, he’s very much a Democrat.

So why is Congressman Torres so pro-Israel? In this interview, he sits down with RDI CEO Uriel Epshtein to dig into the roots of his views on Israel, his perspective on the conflict between Israel and Palestine, the war against Hamas in Gaza, and the “z-word:” Zionism.




Protester who demanded ‘Zionists’ exit NYC subway gets 4 hours of community service
An anti-Israel activist arrested last year for demanding that “Zionists” identify themselves and leave a New York City subway car received a light sentence of four hours of community service on Wednesday, drawing a rebuke from a leading Jewish security group.

Anas Saleh was arrested in June and charged with coercion in the third degree for the incident. A widely-circulated video showed him leading chants of “Raise your hand if you’re a Zionist” on a packed subway car.

“This is your chance to get out,” he shouted. The call was repeated by other protesters on the train. Saleh and many of the other activists were wearing masks.

The footage drew widespread condemnation from public officials, including New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who called the comments “reprehensible and vile.”

Saleh was initially charged with attempted coercion, a misdemeanor, but a judge dismissed that charge.

In addition to the community service, Saleh will be required to take an anti-bias course, according to Jewish community members who attended Wednesday’s hearing.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s office said the sentencing had taken into account Saleh’s lack of a criminal history, conversations with a complainant, and Saleh’s completion of mandatory programming. He will do his community service at a Jewish congregation.

The Community Security Initiative, a group that coordinates security for Jewish communities in the New York area, commended the NYPD and district attorney’s office for their work on the case but criticized the sentencing.

“We are deeply concerned that New York’s current hate crime laws do not classify Mr. Saleh’s actions as a hate crime,” CSI director Mitch Silber said. “We call on the New York State Legislature to update existing laws to accurately reflect the hate involved in such cases and ensure that perpetrators face appropriate consequences.”

“We view with concern the penalty of ‘community service,’” the statement said. “Accountability must be meaningful, and the justice system must continue to take threats, harassment, and exclusionary rhetoric against Jewish and pro-Israel communities seriously.”


Israeli comedy show mocks Red Cross as a taxi service
Popular satire show “Eretz Nehederet” lampooned the International Committee of the Red Cross Wednesday over its handling of hostages held by terrorists in the Gaza Strip, with a skit depicting the aid organization as having “pivoted to be a ride-share app.”

The ICRC, dedicated to aiding victims of war, including by visiting prisoners and detainees, has faced heavy criticism in Israel since October 7, 2023, for its failure to secure any meaningful aid for the 251 hostages taken by terrorists that day — whether by monitoring their conditions or providing them with basic humanitarian assistance, including medicine.

For its limited role in facilitating the transfer of freed hostages from Hamas to Israeli forces — both during a November 2023 ceasefire and the current one — many Israelis have come to derisively refer to the ICRC as little more than a glorified taxi service.

The English-language skit opened with a clip of vehicles carrying the Red Cross symbol driving along a road as a narrator says, “When you’ve been away for a while, you want to be taken home by someone special.”

Amid real footage showing chaotic scenes as Red Cross vehicles transporting Israeli hostages out of Gaza were swamped by masked, armed Hamas gunmen and mobs of jeering Gazans, the voiceover goes on to explain that the Red Cross is now offering a new ride-share app.

The scene then cuts to the imagined inside of a Red Cross vehicle, where a laid-back driver asks a released captive if he is pronouncing her name “Hostage” correctly.

“It’s about time! Where have you been?” the distraught woman asks. “Why didn’t you bring medicine or humanitarian aid? A sign of life to my family?”

“We don’t do that anymore,” responds the driver. “We’ve pivoted to a ride-share app.”




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Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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